orm
some notion of these _capriccios_.

The proverb was---

_Tel menace qui a grand peur._
He threatens who is afraid.

The scene was composed of swaggering scaramouches and some honest cits,
who at length beat them off.

At another _entree_ the proverb was--

_L'occasion fait le larron._
Opportunity makes the thief.

Opportunity was acted by le Sieur Beaubrun, but it is difficult to
conceive how the real could personify the abstract personage. The
thieves were the Duke d'Amville and Monsieur de la Chesnaye.

Another _entree_ was the proverb of--

_Ce qui vient de la flute s'en va au tambour._
What comes by the pipe goes by the tabor.

A loose dissipated officer was performed by le Sieur l'Anglois; the
_Pipe_ by St. Aignan, and the _Tabor_ by le Sieur le Comte! In this
manner every proverb was _spoken in action_, the whole connected by
dialogue. More must have depended on the actors than the poet.[37]

The French long retained this fondness for proverbs; for they still have
dramatic compositions entitled _proverbes_, on a more refined plan.
Their invention is so recent, that the term is not in their great
dictionary of Trevoux. These _proverbes_ are dramas of a single act,
invented by Carmontel, who possessed a peculiar vein of humour, but who
designed them only for private theatricals. Each _proverb_ furnished a
subject for a few scenes, and created a situation powerfully comic: it
is a dramatic amusement which does not appear to have reached us, but
one which the celebrated Catherine of Russia delighted to compose for
her own society.

Among the middle classes of society to this day, we may observe that
certain family proverbs are traditionally preserved: the favourite
saying of a father is repeated by the sons; and frequently the conduct
of a whole generation has been influenced by such domestic proverbs.
This may be perceived in many of the mottos of our old nobility, which
seem to have originated in some habitual proverb of the founder of the
family. In ages when proverbs were most prevalent, such pithy sentences
would admirably serve in the ordinary business of life, and lead on to
decision, even in its greater exigencies. Orators, by some lucky
proverb, without wearying their auditors, would bring conviction home to
their bosoms: and great characters would appeal to a proverb, or deliver
that which in time by its aptitude became one. When Nero was reproached
for the ardour with which h